‘Lay off the layoff questions’ — Canucks goalie Roberto Luongo

Vancouver Canuck goaltender Roberto Luongo (left) talks to head coach Alain Vigneault during team practice at GM Place this week.

Photograph by: Ward Perrin
, Vancouver Sun

We’ve never seen anything like it, and the series hasn’t even started.

The Vancouver Canucks, unwavering in their meticulous 39-year march towards the Stanley Cup, will have gone nine days between games — during the playoffs! — when they finally open the National Hockey League’s second round Thursday night against the Chicago Blackhawks.

There were 53 journalists, broadcasters and camera operators in the Canuck dressing room after Wednesday morning’s practice, an NHL media attendance record for any chamber devoid of chicken wings or Sean Avery.

If given a vote, they (the media, not the wings or wingnut) would have overwhelmingly picked the Canucks to win this series because nearly everyone seems to be. Even the monkey in Toronto picked the Canucks. No, the actual monkey.

The Canucks are Canada’s team and for all the Blackhawks’ dynamic speed and skill and potential and momentum, it seems the only things that can stop Vancouver are a flu pandemic or colossal loss of form by goalie Roberto Luongo.

Or an injury to Luongo, which seemed at least remotely possible when Canuck defenceman Mattias Ohlund hit him in the mask with a soft shot late in Wednesday’s practice.

“I did?” Ohlund asked.

Yeah, you skated behind the net after the shot and pretended not to notice Luongo staring a hole through you, acting like a schoolboy miscreant who has just beaned the back of the teacher’s head with a spitball.

“Oh, yeah, I did,” Ohlund said. “But it wasn’t very hard.”

Well, that’s good.

Given that the Canucks are healthier than any playoff team has the right to be, devoted to conditioning and ridiculously rested, a mass outbreak of injuries or swine flu is highly unlikely. Which brings us to Luongo.

From the moment the Canucks swept aside the St. Louis Blues in four games, earning Vancouver the first happy holiday in April in franchise history, the break in the schedule was always going to be a good thing for the team.

But would it be good for Luongo?

The goalie, driven to get his gloves on a Stanley Cup, takes about as much time off as Google. A day without practice — usually the team has to sedate him or change practice time without telling him — is like a sabbatical for Luongo. Nine days without a game is like a prison sentence.

He loves to be on the ice every day, play every second night and against the Blues was merely 4-0 with a 1.15 goals-against-average and .962 save percentage. Let’s see Google post numbers like that.

It was natural, therefore, there would be questions about the impact of the Canucks’ layoff on their workaholic goalie. And, naturally, Luongo tired of these questions by about Day 2.

By Wednesday, Luongo was saying: “I know you think it’s an issue, right? No, it’s not. This is the playoffs. It’s not the regular season or pre-season. I’m fine. I’m energized. I’m excited. I felt great in practice today and I really want to get things going here.

“I think you guys are reading way too much into it. It’s been 10 days. It hasn’t been two months, know what I mean? We played last week. It’s not something that’s going to be a factor. We’re all hockey players; we all know what to do once we get on the ice. Once the adrenalin kicks in and we’re ready to play and the fans are yelling, we’ll be good to go.”

Luongo gamely stood and answered questions for nearly 20 minutes, but said little. He may as well have been blogging.

But during the St. Louis series, to a reporter patient and diligent enough to hang around and ask the right questions (wasn’t me), Luongo said: “Once you get to the playoffs there’s always that extra level and some players, you don’t know what it is, but they have it.

“That’s the type of player I want to be. In the playoffs, with the chips down and facing the most crucial moment, you want to be at your best.”

The theory that the layoff may have dulled Luongo is fueled less by the time between games than the goalie’s history for starting slowly after inactivity.

He has required two or three weeks to cultivate his A-game at the start of each season in Vancouver, something the goalie readily admits and finds difficult to explain. And in January, after missing two months with the first serious injury of his career, Luongo lost his first five starts while positing an average of 3.70 and save percentage of .876.

Of course, last season, after missing four December games with a rib injury, Luongo won his first three starts with a 0.97 GAA and .968 save rate.

Still, it has been years since he was healthy and went nine days without playing. But he said these are the Stanley Cup playoffs and that changes things. He feels impervious.

“I don’t know what the other team can do to get me off my game,” he said.

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